Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Defunding Planned Parenthood

I have sincerely tried to understand this liberal apoplexy whenever the subject of defunding Planned Parenthood is broached but when I've posed the question throughout the years I never get a clear answer or quite often no answer at all.  WHY is Planned Parenthood entitled to or why are we morally obligated to subsidize this organization through millions of dollars in federal taxpayer funds every year???  Even if I were pro-choice I wouldn't automatically come down on the side of the federal subsidy.  There are quite a few organizations in this country who do yeoman's work on the side of good and yet they don't receive such a subsidy and yet it is mostly a Democratic Article of Faith that PP needs to be federally subsidized and if you don't quite morally calculate it this way you're on the side of darkness and devils.  I have to say though I have always found the pro-abortionism of the NY Times editorial board to be quite stunning even with the string of undercover sting videos by the pro-life although I'm supposed to say the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress. So throw your coins in the fountain here or if you prefer just walk by and glance and give the old Sitemeter an uptick.

32 comments:

  1. Planned Parenthood has been receiving federal funding since Nixon signed bipartisan legislation (Title X-Public Health Services Act) in 1970. The idea was to
    provide women's health services for the poor. The abortion rate that year was 4.53/1000. The rate quickly increased until it was 30/1000 during the Reagan
    administration. Since then the rate has slowly declined to the current 15/1000.
    Defenders of the group note that 3% of its $$ and effort go to abortions, the rest
    to medical tests, BC, education etc. The pro-life folks understandably dislike any
    federal funds to be used for abortions. I figure if the guv't spends a million times as
    much on bailing out Wall Street, starting ill-conceived wars and searching old grannies at airports, the PP $$ is small change. But I understand the frustration.

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    1. $500+ million/year is not small change.

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    2. Rich Lowry has thoughts on the 3% figure (although just the other day PP said 10% of their patients receive abortions): "The 3 percent figure is an artifice and a dodge...How much credit would we give someone for saying he only drives drunk 3 percent of the time, or only cheats on business trips 3 percent of the time, or only hits his wife during 3 percent of domestic disputes?"

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    3. Lowry: "The group performs about 330,000 abortions a year, or roughly 30 percent of all the abortions in the country. By its own accounting in its 2013-2014 annual report, it provides about as many abortions as Pap tests (380,000)." ("Planned Parenthood's Deceptive Numbers" - 8/4/15)

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  2. As I understand the demographics, the PP is sort of the NRA for women .

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    1. Remember the roomful of beagles. Your local animal shelter says they only euthanize dogs and cats 3% of the time. Some won't support the shelter at all as a result. A valid position imo. An existential stigma can't seem to be fully eradicated.

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    2. Beagle death panels? Let's look elsewhere for more blame. How about the idiots that don't spay their animals? My feelings on unwanted pregnancies invariably turn to the the other half of the zygote. How's about condemning the papa as well as the mama? She's in crying at
      PP and he is in the bar playing pool and guffawing. Gimmee a break here.

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  3. Abortion is alot like divorce. Everyone says they're not for it but theirs is the hard case thus the numbers.

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    1. We can conjecture, having been in neither position. How come atheists have the lowest divorce rate?

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    2. Re abortion procedures I would think most people would hate the inconvenience of appointments like I hate to get my oil changed. Also I rapped with a Jamaican chef once "MUST it always end with intercourse?" as creative couples do other things. He: "It has to go in the hole, it has to go in the hole." Try to have a rational discussion.

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  4. We note that Google's daily topic today is the invention of the traffic light. The first
    were used as early as 1912. For your edification, we note that the remote TV system was not invented until 1949. The traffic cam, however did not come into
    use until the late sixties in Europe. In 1982, in NYC, they were installed after an
    eager driver ran a red (and a little girl in a stroller). History 101

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    1. Re traffic cams Yonkers has become one big vast surveillance state.

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  5. I ran across-
    "Our Lady of Guadalupe is a community of 32 monks, most of whom have spent their adult lives at this Abbey. Their days are filled with prayer, work, spiritual study and contemplation. Trappists are committed to self-sufficiency, and strive to live solely by the work of their own hands. To this end, Our Lady of Guadalupe is home to several small industries: they sustainably harvest 900 acres of Douglas Fir, operate a small bookbinding shop, manage a large wine warehouse serving their neighbors --- and they bake an amazing fruitcake."
    -so how come the Christian Brothers brothers are more famous?

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    1. I sometimes go up Rte. 9 past Peekskill NY to Graymoor or the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement. Retired monks, chefs, nuns' giftshops and the sprawling old Gothic grounds and buildings. It has everything including the BVM is said to have appeared here in 1906 or '09 to an altar boy and part of the Appalachian Trail cuts through here BUT no Graymoor Ale to my knowledge. Sure you can meditate and pray and contemplate Sin and the state of the world but ya gotta have the Ale!

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  6. BB what time is it in North Korea?

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    1. The current time in the land of the illustrious leader is self-adusting, so my
      Timex , not being a smartwatch, cannot figure it out. Nor does
      my wall calendar say much about the Juche year 104. I figure they all yell
      "Happy New Juche!" as they lower some il Jong relative's head from the
      palace gate.

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  7. Getting back to PP if the group that is 97% pure (like Ivory Soap?) is ultimately defunded why can't liberal Hollywood donors more than pick up the tab? Hef?

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    1. PP annual funding comes from $225 million state and federal health grants, $293 million Medicaid services, $257 million private donors and $75 million Title X. This is spent 35% birth control, 34% STDs, 17% cancer screening, 10% women's health, 3% abortions and 1% mgt. Their argument is that by law, no federal funding can be used for abortions, hence (1) any cuts would
      cut into their main services for poor women and (2) abortion funding is already privately funded. So yeah, de-funding is possible. The savings would buy 1/2 an F-35 fighter jet. The Deparment of Defense thanks you,
      the US Air Force thanks you, General Dynamics thanks you...and Hef sends
      his regards.

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    2. Actually I believe Hef has always been a big and consistent financial backer of the whole pro-abortion cause. I know PP has some type of crisis management firm working on its behalf because lately they make it sound like if you walk into one of their clinics/health centers you'd be hard-pressed to find an abortion in progress. "Any abortions here? maybe in the closet or under the desk?" PP official: "Abortion, what's that? We're handling breasts today."

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    3. Going over your PP figures and stats again which are interesting one can easily get the impression that PP is an arm or dept. of the gov't like Education or HHS. Just sayin':)

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  8. About midway through my blogging career I proposed the following. It's gonna get a little graphic so get the kids out of the room. Many times a man and a woman think they're into each other and so before long there's the night of full-bore hardcore intercourse, you know the piston-pumping testicle-slapping kind. Next morning they don't quite feel the same about each other, the lust on the apple is gone. This is where your basic handjob comes in, it affords the needed release without the risk of pregnancy and folks can then reevaluate ("geez that was nice and ok but I've been thinking..."). Sure intercourse can come later if you still feel the same but this would eliminate a lot of the consequences of one-night stands and whatnot. Can't have this conversation with the Jamaican chef though:)

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    1. While IMO, all sides would agree on the merit of that, I can think of a Monsignor or two that would get their chasuble in a twist.

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    2. Rigid dogmatic principles are never practical. Bill Clinton would probably say it's not even sex. Clinton was heavily into nonsex.

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    3. If the male was the one getting pregnant, would that change how society
      views the situation?

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    4. In a perfect universe you would not have to use bc to have sex, you'd just have sex. In reality it is what it is so some thought and planning have to precede it. I think many folks just do the deed when the mood hits.I hearken back to soapie's sex as a contract idea, you accept the risks going in.

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    5. Then there's the issue of a climate of abortion actually fosterssocial irresponsibity. How many abortions performed at PP clinics are the result of little societal adulteries? In an imperfect world abortion is a poor solution to a social problem.

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  9. "Undercover Sting Videos": probably a 1st Amendment right. Our POV typically
    colors our perceptions. The pro-choicers feel violated in once case. In another, some guy impersonating a Koch brother called and had a revealing discussion with
    WI guv Scott Walker. In GOP controlled Idaho, they took it a step further. Stung
    by undercover vids of factory farm workers brutalizing dairy cowns (kicking them and knocking them around with 2x4s, punching them in the face, etc), the legislature quickly passed a law where anyone filming agricultural animal cruelty was subject to
    twice the penalty for the abuser. (The Idaho dairy/ranch lobby being right up there with the NRA). That took care of such sting operations until a judge ruled the law
    unconstitutional in light of 1 Amendment. These laws of convenience for the powerful make one wonder: in Colorado, the bereaved parents of a teen girl victim
    of the Aurora theatre shooting sued four companies involved in selling thousands of
    rounds to the schizophrenic poppy-eyed red haired James Holmes for her death by
    assault rifle. Since the Bush 2 law of 2005 declared all ammunition mfg and businesses immune from any and all suits, the Judge declared the case void and charged the elderly parents $200.000 reimbursement for the companies legal expenses.. (No other businesses are totally immune from suit, BTW). For their
    termerity in defense of their teen daughter, the couple face bankruptcy. IMO, there
    seems a drifting gulf between right & wrong and ill conceived law.

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    1. What amazes me about those PP videos is those high-ranking PP officials talked so freely and had no idea they were being had like can you talk into the lapel?

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    2. Sort of like industrial spying: actually had training in how to answer
      phone questions that came from the medical community, "what chemicals are in your ammunition?" Why? "we have a 3 year old child that has been
      eating it" Could be a legitimate physician...or one of several clever competitors. So, you gently probe, "Offhand can you give me the prothrombin time of the diagnostics evaluation for duodenal cholecystokinin?" The world is one big sting operation, ya know?

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    3. PP officials don't seem too swift.

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    4. That is why sting operations are so successful.

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  10. PP - the McDonaldizing of Abortion:)

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